Williams v. Superior Court, 3 Cal. 5th 531 (2017) Michael Williams was an employee of Marshalls of CA in Costa Mesa, California. After slightly more than a year of employment, Williams brought a representative action against Marshalls under the Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (“PAGA”), alleging Marshalls had failed to provide its … Continue Reading

Bartoni v. American Med. Response W., 11 Cal. App. 5th 1084 (2017) Current and former employees of an ambulance service company sued their employer for unpaid meal and rest periods. The complaint alleges claims on behalf of a putative class as well as non-class claims under the Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (“PAGA”). The … Continue Reading

Arias v. Raimondo, 2017 WL 2676771 (9th Cir. 2017) José Arnulfo Arias worked as a milker for Angelo Dairy. The dairy did not complete and file a Form I-9 when it hired Arias. According to the appellate court, “[i]nstead of complying with federal law, the Angelos wielded it as a weapon to confine Arias in … Continue Reading

Silva v. See’s Candy Shops, Inc., 7 Cal. App. 5th 235 (2017) The Court of Appeal held that the trial court properly granted summary judgment to See’s Candy as to the class-certified claims for failure to properly pay wages as a result of the employer’s rounding and grace-period policies, based on expert testimony that employees … Continue Reading

$90 Million Judgment Reinstated: Employers Must Relieve Employees Of All Duties During Their Break Time Today, the California Supreme Court ruled that California law strictly prohibits on-duty rest periods. “What [the law] require[s] instead is that employers relinquish any control over how employees spend their break time, and relieve their employees of all duties – … Continue Reading

Cruz v. Sun World Int’l, LLC, 2015 WL 9463140 (Cal. Ct. App. 2015) Plaintiffs in this putative class action alleged off-the-clock work had been performed by employees, that meal and rest breaks were shortened, that the additional hour of pay for each meal or rest period they were denied was not paid, and that their … Continue Reading

This law clarifies that special meal period waiver rules for employees in the health care industry remain in force, despite the uncertainty caused by a recent court of appeal opinion (SB 327).… Continue Reading

The latest legislative session has just ended, and, true to form, the California Legislature has added more than a dozen new laws affecting employers doing business in the nation’s largest state. These statutes are in addition to the other six new laws that we reported on in September: Signed legislation: Sick Leave: Accrual And Limitations Language … Continue Reading

Augustus v. ABM Sec. Servs., Inc., 182 Cal. Rptr. 3d 676 (2015) In this class action lawsuit, plaintiffs alleged that ABM did not provide rest periods to its security guard employees because it failed to relieve them of all duties and required them to remain on call during their breaks. The trial court certified the … Continue Reading

For nearly 22 years, IWC Wage Order No. 4 and IWC Wage Order No. 5 have permitted employees in the “health care industry” who work shifts in excess of eight total hours in a workday to “voluntarily waive their right to one of their two meal periods. . . . in a written agreement that … Continue Reading

In re Walgreen Co. Overtime Cases, 231 Cal. App. 4th 437 (2014) The putative class members in this case moved for class certification on the theory that although Walgreens’s stated policy on meal breaks was proper, its actual practice departed from its stated policy in an illegal and class wide way. The trial court denied … Continue Reading

Duran v. U.S. Bank Nat’l Ass’n, 59 Cal. 4th 1 (2014) Plaintiffs in this case are loan officers for U.S. Bank (“USB”) who claim they were misclassified as exempt employees under the outside salesperson exemption. After certifying a class of 260 plaintiffs, the trial court devised a plan to determine the extent of USB’s liability … Continue Reading

Commentators have quipped that class certification is so easy in California that with little effort a group of plaintiffs could certify even a ham sandwich. In fact, as we have discussed here, we have seen a proliferation of recent appellate decisions hinging class certification on the mere existence of an employer’s uniform policy – no … Continue Reading

As we recently reported here, there have been a number of appellate decisions ordering class certification based on the existence of an employer’s companywide policy – all while overlooking numerous individualized questions that would undoubtedly create manageability problems during trial. On December 30, 2013, the California Court of Appeal in Johnson v. California Pizza Kitchen, … Continue Reading

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